University of North Carolina Athletics
Carolina Readies For Spring Season
February 18, 2017 | Women's Golf
CHAPEL HILL - After a strong fall, the Carolina women's golf team turns their attention to a six event schedule for this upcoming spring. Beginning on Monday, the road to the NCAA Championships will go through St. Lucie, Florida with stops in South Carolina, Hawaii, and back home in North Carolina along the way.
The team will be looking to improve on their 14th place finish at last season's NCAA Championships, the best school finish since 2012 when the team finished 10th.
While 14th place is an accomplishment, Coach Jan Mann acknowledges there is room for improvement, “I think the players that we have, the maturity of those individuals, they have improved….In women's golf there are so many great teams, it is difficult. I think that we have a team that if they play like we know that they can, they can finish much higher than 14th.”
The team will be led throughout the spring by Leslie Cloots. Cloots has the lowest scoring average on the team over the last two years and has continued to hold that title throughout this season.
Cloots, a senior, has become one of the leaders on the team according to Mann, “She's obviously one of our top players and a leader on the team. I think the key to perform as a leader is not just only with her score but with her actions. She's stepping into that role very nicely in working with the team. She can be the one that sets the example on and off the golf course.”
Senior Rachel Jones affirmed what Mann had to say about Cloots, “Leslie's always so supportive. She appreciates hard work, she's always been really good about encouraging me and the rest of the teammates, so I appreciate that.”
Cloots says she honed her leadership skills at Carolina's Dick Baddour Leadership Academy, “I would say the leadership academy has really helped, I really like the program a lot. To be able to talk with other seniors on other teams and get ideas from there helps.”
For Carolina, looking forward to the spring has obsessed the team's winter. The team's practice has been filled with putting and a focus on maintaining mental toughness throughout a round. To prepare for every eventuality, the team has been competing within themselves all season.
Coach Mann said, “We divide the team in two and throughout the semester we have an ongoing competition. In the NCAA Championships we have match play, which is not something that we typically do throughout the season, so every Friday we go out on our golf course and have a match play event and it's the same teams each time. At practice we also set up competitions, whether it be team or individual, they have to accomplish certain things within the practice. We try to make it fun but also difficult so they experience that.”
The team's journey begins next Monday at the Central District Invitational in St. Lucie, Florida. From there, March will feature visits to the Darius Rucker Intercollegiate in Hilton Head, South Carolina, Dr. Donnis Thompson Invitational at the Island of Oahu, Hawaii, and the Briar Creek Invitational in Johns Isle, South Carolina. Straddling March and April will be the Bryan National Collegiate in Browns Summit, North Carolina. The team then will begin their postseason in Pawleys Island, South Carolina for the ACC Championships and will then await their NCAA Regional destination.
It's a strong spring schedule says Mann, “In Hawaii it's going to be like an ACC reunion I think Wake Forest and NC State will be there. Throughout the tournaments we'll see a lot of the same team but we'll also see some new teams, particularly in Hawaii, Briar's Creek we'll see some different competition. We have a strong schedule, looking forward to competing.”
The players are particularly looking forward to playing in Hawaii. According to Cloots, her parents will be making the trip from Belgium, but they required some convincing. She recounted the story, saying, “My parents are coming to that one too, first they didn't want to come, they wanted to go to South Carolina, and I was like, 'You've already been there!' So my mom wanted to go then but my dad didn't since it's double the flight length. My mom was like you just need to tell your dad. So I did and he said, 'Alright we'll go to Hawaii.'”
Cloots is hoping the team will be able to make a run deep into nationals. The past few summers she's played for Belgium in the European Team Championships where matchplay is a heavy focus. When asked to summarize that experience in a few words, she elaborated, “I love it.” Those were all the words necessary for Cloots, who believes the team has what it takes, “ We should make it. Compared to the previous two years when we didn't make it (nationals) were so disappointing. But this year I think we can do better than that. We have a really strong team this year, we have more girls which helps competitiveness.”
Mann says of the Tar Heels, “Obviously we want to win as many tournaments as we can, win the ACCs, make it regionals and nationals, and do well at both. To win, is the ultimate goal. We have the mindset that if we work hard each and every day and put in 100% each and every day then winning will take care of itself.”
The team's journey will begin Monday at St. Lucie, Florida, check back to GoHeels.com tomorrow for the Tar Heel lineup and a tournament preview.
![Images from the first round of the 2026 Gators Invitational on Friday, March 6, 2026 at Mark Bostick Golf Course at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL. [Photo by Matt Pendleton Photography for North Carolina Tar Heels Athletics]](https://images.sidearmdev.com/resize?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdxbhsrqyrr690.cloudfront.net%2Fsidearm.nextgen.sites%2Func.sidearmsports.com%2Fimages%2F2026%2F3%2F7%2F260306-NCAAWGOLF-UNC-GatorsInvitational-0828-MattPendleton_copy.jpg&height=340&type=webp)
Players Mentioned
